Each year, April signifies the
coming of spring, and it also brings the Michigan QSO Party. Compared to 2010,
the 2011 MiQP saw a small uptick in log entries (289
entries vs. 280 last year), but thanks to improving conditions, activity was
way up. Reported QSOs set a new record for MiQP (45,562
vs. 41,666 in 2008) with 3,316 unique callsigns
appearing in those logs (although not a new record, it was the third highest in
the history of the MiQP).

The table below shows the
breakdown of QSOs from the contest. After several mediocre years, 40M
regained its title of "most important MiQP band" in a huge way with an
increase in QSOs of 91.5% vs. 2010! It did so apparently, at the expense
of 80M, which had a 40% drop and many entries reported dramatically lower
levels of activity
on that band during daytime. 20M had a healthy increase (37.6%) while 15M finally
showed signs of life with 681 total QSOs (up 995% with more QSOs than the past
ten years combined on that band!) Even 10M had a 362% increase, and more
QSOs than the past three years combined on that band!

80

40

20

15

10

total

CW

3862

10485

3926

324

10

18607 (+17%)

SSB

5951

17175

3438

372

19

26955 (+34%)

Total

9813

27660

7364

696

29

45562

Pct of
total

22%

61%

16%

1.5%

0.06%

-

vs. 2010

- 40.0%

+91.5%

+40.2%

+995%

+362%

+26%

Both CW and SSB were up this
year. On both modes, it was 40M which made the biggest difference. The
surge on 15M was a boon for many operators out west, providing QSOs on two
additional band-modes which have been mostly barren wastelands in recent years.

It is interesting to view the overall contest in terms of QSOs by
hour. The graph below shows the number of QSOs made by band for each hour
of the contest. Nothing too surprising here, but its interesting to see
how the bands ebb and flow with respect to each other. 40M starts out
strong, but wanes to a dip in the 23Z hour before picking back up in the 00Z
hour. 80M was pretty slow for the first four hours, but starts to come to
life in the 20Z hour. 20M is productive up through 23Z. Note that
40M was the best band nine of the twelve hours of the contest, and when 40M
isn't top dog, it's 80M. Some useful strategy clues here...

Unfortunately, we have to report that
only 82 of the 83 MI counties were active during the contest, with the missing
county being Cheboygan. This is ironic when you recall that as recently as
2007, CHEB was easily workable due to the K8MQP multi-op effort. We'll have to see
if we can't develop some MiQPers there for 2012. The five most active counties were
Oakland,
Berrien,
Wayne, Macomb and Ingham.
Oakland, Berrien and Wayne repeat from 2010, while Macomb and Ingham moved into
the top five, displacing Washtenaw and Livingston. The five least active counties
were Roscommon, Gogebic, Oscoda, Dickinson, and of course
Cheboygan.
None of these were repeats from 2010. As in 2010, none of these
hard-to-find counties had fixed
station operations this year, relying on transient mobile stations for their
activity. Perhaps a strategic hint for 2012...

From the out-of-state areas, QSOs were reported with 56 of the 63
geographic entities on CW, 60 of 63 on SSB and 60 of 63 overall. Its
remarkable that these
numbers are identical to last year. The five most active out-of-state areas were
Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and DX. Ohio,
Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are repeats from 2010, while Minnesota and DX bumped
Georgia (6th) and Texas (13th) from last
year's top-five. No QSOs were reported with three
entities: Nunavut,
Yukon Territories and Newfoundland-Labrador. All
of these are typically difficult to get in MiQP, although the latter was
workable last year.

County Activity

54 counties were represented by fixed station
operations, which is the best ever for MiQP, and a step towards our goal of
having fixed station entries from all 83 counties. Overall, MiQP entries
worked an average of 35.7 counties in 2011 vs.
31.4 in 2010. Michigan stations were the big
winners in this regard; their average number of counties worked rose from
33.8 in 2010 to 40.8
in 2011, which can probably be attributed to the shorter skip on 40M which made
it easier to work the mobiles as they moved from county to county. The
number of counties worked by non-Mich stations also rose, but by a smaller
amount: from 29.4 in 2010 to
30.9 in 2011. No Michigan counties saw
first-ever recorded fixed station entries in 2011 which leaves only
two Michigan counties which have never had a fixed station MiQP entry reported:
Ontonagon and Schoolcraft.

Records

2011 turned out to be a year
where a number of records were seriously challenged, but few were broken.
Nonetheless, the crew at K8XXX set
a new record for the Michigan Multi-multi category at
737,352, beating their previous mark set in 2009.
Also, the crew at
W8OAK, the Oakland County EOC, clobbered their
record for EOC stations set last year by more than double, raising the bar to
265,556. Laci, OM2VL
bumped his existing record set last year for high power DX stations to
34,338. Finally, Scott,
WB2REI/8 set a new mark for the number of counties worked by a Michigan
single-operator with 67, breaking the mark formerly shared
by N8SS, N8M and K8MM.

In addition,
42 new fixed station and 7 new mobile records were set at the county
level. We congratulate all of
the record setters for the effort they put into the 2010 MiQP.

Log Problems

This year, we seemed to have more problems with
logs than normal. These problems generally fell into one of three
categories. The first type was the result of people logging the contest
with a general-purpose logging program, and when the Cabrillo file was
generated, some or all of the information logged from the stations being worked
was omitted by the program. In this situation, an e-mail was sent to the
entrant informing them of the problem and asking for a repaired log. In
many of these cases, this information was missing from EVERY QSO, so with every
QSO being bad, the final score was zero, unfortunately providing no public
acknowledgement for their efforts in MiQP.

Second, a number of logs had errors in their entry
category. For example, the log indicates "SINGLE-OP" and perhaps their
soapbox comments describe a multi-op effort. Or occasionally the log
indicates "SINGLE-OP" but doesn't indicate the power level. If the log
doesn't clearly indicate the power level or category (e.g., "high", "low" or "QRP"),
the log is defaulted to high power.

Finally, we have a consistent
problem with the popular N3FJP Logging Program with multi-operator entries.
Apparently, this program does not provide the capability to record the callsigns
of the operators of a multi-op station, so entrants are recording the operators'
calls along with the station callsign in the station callsign field. This
requires the logcheckers to manually edit the files, so that the scoring and
contest report will be accurate. If multi-op entries using N3FJP would
simply add an additional line to their Cabrillo file beginning with "OPERATORS:" and listing the
operators' calls it would save the logchecker's time and ensure that the list of
calls is reported accurately.

Remembering Hank Kohl, K8DD SK

Back in November 2010, the
MiQP community lost a good friend and ardent MiQP supporter with the passing of
Hank Kohl, K8DD. Hank was an active MiQP participant for at least
three decades, and he resurrected the contest in 1997 after it suffered a two year
hiatus due to confusion over dates and conflicts with the Dayton Hamvention.
He did the logchecking and results for 1997 and 1998, and accepted a position on
the MiQP Organizing Committee when MRRC took over in 1999. It was Hank's
persistent enthusiasm for MiQP which got this author (K8CC) involved with it
that year. Hank was a long time member of MRRC, QRP ARCI, EMARC and other
clubs. In this, our first MiQP without him, it seems only fitting to
remember his leadership and many contributions to our event.

Acknowledgements

Once again, this editor would
like to acknowledge that producing these MiQP results
is not a one man show. Our thanks go to Ron, W8RU and his daughter
Caroline,
who typed the 30 or so paper logs received into the computer for log checking
and scoring. Also, much appreciation to Mike, WD8S
who manages the certificates and plaques for the MiQP awards program, and to Everett Jackson, WZ8P and the team at Franklin Printing in Zanesville,
OH for their assistance in creating the beautiful MiQP plaques.

At the end of this report,
youíll find a list of the MiQP plaques and the clubs and organizations that
sponsored them. The MiQP committee thanks these sponsors for their generous
support of MiQP.

As these results are coming
out in early August, donít forget to look for many familiar MiQP callsigns
during the Ohio QSO Party, August 27-28, 2011, also sponsored by the Mad
River Radio Club. Come join in the fun!